Mashups don’t come better than Danger Mouse’s 2004 effort, The Grey Album, which combined an a cappella version of rapper Jay-Z’s Black Album with instrument samples from The Beatles’ White Album. Completely unauthorised and deemed illegal, very few people have the promo vinyls that were initially pressed. You will not find it on CD or on iTunes (or maybe you can) but you know for sure that it can be found floating around in the deep bowels of the interwebs.

Find The Grey Album at your own discretion/risk, but almost as good as the audio mashup is a video mashup done for one of the tracks. Not the most polished video in the world, but I guess the idea was good.

MTV just launched MTV Music where they have a free database of over 16,000 music videos available free for everyone to watch. They even have an API to perhaps entice geeks to ditch YouTube and MySpace as their source for music videos.

The first thing that went through my mind was “What took them so long?!?”. The second thing that went popped into my head was “They’re calling it MTV Music? How redundant!”.

The third thing I did was to watch Dire Straits‘ Money For Nothing video which was one of the first few things I remember watching on MTV back in the days when they used to show nothing but music videos.

Warning: Video quality is quite crap for the older stuff

Aston Martin is building a brand new, super-exclusive coupe codenamed One-77. There are a number of ‘leaked’ renderings of the car flying around and it looks bloody sweet. Well, it better look sweet because it is reportedly going to sell for about £1.2M when its launched. They are also only going to build about 70 odd units of this car, which is a smart move because the number of affluent investment bankers still in a job has significantly dwindled in recent months

It’s a tired old concept but the strangely magical and beautifully crafted sea creatures make me want to watch this ad again and again!

Amazon Japan has limited edition robot toys made from Amazon shipping boxes for sale at ¥1,000 (about S$15). An authorised customization of the original Revoltech Danboard cardboard robots, the Amazon robots, like the originals, also have a button on the left side of the head which lights up the eyes. Unlike the original toy, I am not sure if this box robot’s can be taken off to reveal any hidden identity — maybe it’d reveal a Japanese looking Jeff Bezos?

Ugh.

1. Take any four-digit number whose digits are not all identical.
   (Let’s take 3141 as an example.)
2. Rearrange the string of digits to form the largest and smallest four digit numbers possible, padding it with leading zeroes if needed.
   (We get 4311 as the largest number possible and 1134 as the smallest.)
3. Subtract the smaller number from the larger one.
   (4311-1134 gives us 3177.)
4. With the result, repeat step 2 above.
   (7731 - 1377 = 6354, 6543 - 3456 = 3087, 8730 - 0378 = 8352, 8532 - 2358 = 6174, 7641 - 1467 = 6174)

Within about seven steps, you’ll hit the number 6174. This works for any four digit number that doesn’t have repeated digits (like 8888 which will immediately give a zero after step 2). The magic number for three digit numbers is 495. This remarkable phenomenon was discovered by D. R. Kaprekar in 1949.

Amazon.com introduced Windowshop.com last week, their take on a virtual ‘window shopping’ experience. It lets you zoom and pan through Amazon content, like their best seller lists in music, books, video and other categories. One would guess their inspiration was the Cooliris application, but Amazon’s Windowshop seems tame in comparison. It seriously lacks the ‘wow’ factor of a slick psuedo-3D environment that Cooliris has.

With shiny, image-driven interfaces popping up everywhere, 2008 might be remembered as the year of the visual search. If visual search breaks into the big-time, Gesture based navigation might be the next big thing that may follow into the mainstream.

[The] last time AC/DC made No 1 in Britain, the country was on the brink of recession. Back In Black, the album that marked their commercial breakthrough and went on to become the second biggest-selling of all time, was released in 1980, just as inflation had reached 20% and unemployment inched towards 2 million.

›› The Guardian analyses the timings of AC/DC’s chart successes

These are the same guys who were from that Budweiser television commercial eight years ago. Brilliant!

Realising their miserable failure as indie rockers, the now defunct Simian branched out sideways into the dance side of the indie spectrum as Simian Mobile Disco. Their 2007 release Attack Decay Sustain Release is a collection of mostly punchy, light and hook-laden dance tracks. Given their rock roots, this is admittedly rather effete dance music fare but you won’t really care or notice once you get into it.

Simian Mobile Disco are actually in town and will be playing at Zouk tonight. It’s probably going to be an awesome set and, unless you are pregnant or otherwise limited in mobility, you really have no excuse not to be there tonight.

A great response to an article on plain packaging to strip the ‘glamour’ from cigarettes for ‘new’ smokers.

If you are on a Mac, need a simple software to automate your backups and don’t have much money to spare, you definitely need to take a look at iBackup. Created by Martin Jahn, iBackup is a simple-to-use back up tool that allows for easy restoration as well. Not only does it back up your files, it can also save system preferences and settings from applications like iCal, iSync, Keychains, etc. Very highly recommended for those who need a simple backup tool that can automate backups with minimum fuss.

If you are using it in a commercial environment, you need to pay for it though. But that’s not really a lot to ask for, is it?

Mr Jones makes great looking timepieces that are designed to ‘provoke reflection about the watch and it’s cultural functions’. If you are in the market for a super precise time telling watch that looks great, I believe you’re out of luck with these limited edition watches.

Totally weird shit.

Nice smackdown by Apple on the copycat Microsoft campaign.

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.

›› Warren Buffet has his plate filled with American picks

Jim Hance does some awesome paintings that blends pop culture icons and parody art (or “twisted art” in the artist’s own words). Stormtrooper Fields Forever is my current favourite though his other works are equally impressive. I’d love to buy one of his pieces one day for my home for sure, and they are very affordable too.

Nick Franglen and Fred Deakin (aka Lemon Jelly) released their full debut album, LemonJelly.ky in 2001. It was both a commercial and critical success, and if you listened to the album, you’d know why. With the warm, organic beats and weird, psychedelic synths, this album will just make you happy. Very happy and quite bouncy all day long; go give it a listen it if you haven’t yet!

Obama ‘08 - Vote For Hope is a very slickly produced video from MC Yogi which shows his support for (duh!) Barack Obama. This is obviously a great way to plug his new album that was recently released, but even then, this is a very nice piece of self-expression.

Random fact: Did you know TeddyBears started out as a grindcore band?

The giraffe is the tallest among all land-living animals. Their front legs are slightly longer than their hind legs. Giraffes have highly evolved tongues that can be as long as 50 centimetres. Also, a giraffe’s heart can be massive, weighing up to almost 10 kilograms, because they have generate large pressures to send blood up those long necks.

You should read up more in case you start getting giraffe questions when you wear this LRG t-shirt from Karmaloop. Or you could just tell them you’re a vegan (just like the giraffe).

You could say that if Definitely Maybe was their Stone Roses, Dig Out Your Soul is their Second Coming. It won’t win them any new fans, but those that believed the truth last time will dig this.

›› The Observer reviews the new Oasis album

One of the more technically advanced gadgets in its day almost 70 years ago, the Jaeger LeCoultre Compass looks as like a very, very polished piece of workmanship. It cost about £40 pounds in 1937 but today, this timeless beauty can fetch about US$2,000.

[Via oobject]

Another awesome, (relatively) high resolution image gallery on Boston.com that details the big ball of fire that is our Sun (which is having a bit of a rest now apparently).

…and John McCain is a courier pigeon.

See more of this ‘Candidate = ‘ in this Flickr set. It’s all pretty funny (I am still laughing at the ‘McCain = Courier Pigeon’), but it is a bit disturbing when people start using material things to identify with people.

[Via Wired]

Self-dipping chicken nuggets are but one of the attractions at the new Banksy installation in New York which is contained in a store called The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill. Videos seem to show a great deal more detail, especially the animatronics.

[Via Wooster Collective]

When Let’s Get Killed came out in the late 90s, Irishman David Holmes never got the fanfare and radio play that his contemporaries, like Fatboy Slim, garnered. His quality and talent (especially evident in This Film’s Crap, Let’s Slash The Seats and his Essential Mix compilation) was/is far superior to some of the electronic music that was all the rage back in the day.

Every track on this album opens with sampled sounds and conversations from New York and segues into the music, much like a soundtrack for an imagined movie about the city. All in all, it is a very groovy, eclectic, if disjointed, mix of music. Radio 7 is a standout track and should have really been used in some way in some Bond movie (or parody).

A testament to Holmes’ enduring quality, my friends, must be the fact that he is still producing quality stuff while his contemporaries of the past decade have, to put it mildly, faded.

JULY 11, 2039: Bill Clinton, ninety-two, dies on the same day Chinese Democracy II is released.

›› Chuck Klosterman looks to the future on Esquire.com

So a couple days (or was it weeks) ago, I saw this comic from the ever excellent xkcd and thought it was pretty funny. Today, I find out that YouTube really implemented it!

The audio playback is pretty good (though it unsurprisingly muddles through lorem ipsum text). One can only hope users guilty of idiot comments will suffer unspeakable blows to their self-esteem from this new feature.

You can trust the Japanese to come up with something whacky like a Vacuum Cleaner USB mouse. It costs ¥1980 (about S$30) and it might help clean up your dirty surfing habits, whatever they might be.

Funny t-shirt from Eric Rewitzer, thought I think it might have looked better on a lighter, less muddy coloured t-shirt.

And speaking of Obama, it’s good to see him robustly elbowing back the Republican smear campaign.

Order, download, browse and enjoy the new site.

Nice typographic/infographic video from Athletics and Good Magazine, but honestly, it’s not the most ground breaking motion graphics we have seen, is it?

See more beautiful and unique silkscreen prints, posters and stuff from Phineas Xavier Jones.

With all the money they made, I suppose the Arctic Monkeys‘ Alex Turner could do whatever the hell he felt like doing. And so maybe he decided to gang up with his friend Miles Kane, start a side project called The Last Shadow Puppets and release a ballsy and ambitious album titled Age of the Understatement that would pay homage and draw inspiration from retro ‘orchestral’ pop music.

Despite the arrangements sounding somewhat familiar (maybe nostalgic is the right word here), the sweeping strings, fulsome percussions and great energy make this a very, very good album. Already I am thinking this should be one of the best albums of the year.

I always wondered what a wolverine would sound like chewing through plywood. Now I know: like Sarah Palin “debating” Joe Biden.

›› Howard Fineman from Newsweek.com

Swedish designer Peter Thuvander wants to make charging your iPhone or iPod literally into child’s play with his iYo. It’s just a concept at this point and it was borne out of the dark Swedish winters where there isn’t any sun for solar device chargers. Maybe Apple or some other large manufacturer might pick it up for mass production one day if this yo-yo gets enough spin in the media.

[Via Treehugger]

Nicholas and Angela, from Kansas City, piece together parts found at antique and thrift stores and build their own line of robot sculptures. Very nice work, guys!

No batteries needed! Just add water and some salt and it works! You just have to keep adding some salt every couple of days, but this is one clock that works without any electricity at all.

Johnny Rotten (aka John Lyndon) once sang “I am an anarchist” and led the punk revolution in the 70s, but now he is selling butter. The ensuing mockery, which was as inevitable as tomorrow, is just too funny.

That’s the official video to the new single, Spiralling, from Keane’s upcoming studio album, Perfect Symmetry. I seriously don’t know what the hell is up with the retro (and honestly quite fugly) 80s Max Headroom-esque graphics. The ‘Ohh’ background vocals sounds like it was sampled from EMF’s Unbelievable and they are even some Zoo TV style video walls somewhere in there. A terrifyingly ugly and obnoxiously derivative video that looks like it was done by my neighbour’s 12 year old who could only afford 3D software from two decades ago.

Fail.